Entrepreneurs

Or as RSMcCain would say: “Leftist bitch crows about the state only to be bitchslapped by reality.”

“Other ways include giving the state bank or agency that invested a stake in the company. A good example is Finland, where the government-backed innovation fund SITRA retained equity when it invested in Nokia. There is also the possibility of keeping a share of the intellectual property rights, which are almost totally given away in the current system”
–“It’s a Myth That Entrepreneurs Drive New Technology
For real innovation, thank the state.
By Mariana Mazzucato”

”
Microsoft Corp. has struck a deal to buy Nokia Oyj’s mobile-phone division, apparently in the hopes that lashing together two also-rans in the mobile business will somehow turn them into one successful firm.
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Nokia, meanwhile, has been declining even faster, as Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Apple Inc. have carved up the market between them. The company that used to account for 20 percent of Finland’s gross domestic product has seen its sales decline dramatically in the smartphone era and is operating at a loss.”

Mazzucato crows about how the “state” bankrolled GPS and somehow paid for Apple’s touchscreen and it’s innovation. Um no. Apple was in such dire straits the Microsoft bailed them out in the 90’s. Seeing the chaning tech landscape they invested in a phone with a touchscreen. Touchscreens were not “bankrolled” by the US government directly.

Sure there was investment but the government didn’t pay for nor tell Apple to invent touchscreens. Intel got out of the defense business (they make supercomputers, but those processors benefited from the PC revolution). The government helped develop the internet, but the first 5 years no (none, zero, zilch) commercial activity was allowed on the “internet”. It was private business that took a chance.

The PC, touchscreen and the internet were developed mostly by private industry.

Boeing first got into a scandal: Darleen Druyun went to prison for bribery and Boeing got caught price fixing. Then they protested the award to Airbus. Boeing managed to get Congress and the DoD to award them a contract years late. And overbudget, the first KC-X has yet to fly.

Kinda like how Nokia just did the same thing over and over and had their brains beaten in by Apple and Samsung (both using OSes not developed by the government, rejoice hippes!).

But that’s okay! Let the state invest in business. Crony capitalism! Facebook and Google are paid by the NSA to spy on us . Ask Finland, if not for Microsoft, Nokia would have taken their economy down with them.

RS McCain has a link to a professors anti-GOP rant. Most of academia loves government money and hates America. So of course they want money for “green” research (that goes nowhere) and the soft subjects (that do nothing).

But at least Slate has published an article that, praises the DoD instead of calling for cuts..change I guess.